


the vast bright Babylon

by Sarah T (SarahT), SarahT



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 08:11:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19314154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SarahT/pseuds/Sarah%20T, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SarahT/pseuds/SarahT
Summary: A week in Paris isn't too much to ask, is it?





	the vast bright Babylon

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the Spike for betaing.

Paris is an infinitely forgiving city, if you have the resources. Charles eats well, at least when he can bring himself to, goes to lectures at the Sorbonne when he wakes up before noon, sleeps, when he can, on the crispest white sheets at the George V. If he’s recognized on the streets, no one approaches him. If he doesn’t work on his research, as he has the time to for the first time in years, there are all the finest excuses. He has no idea what’s supposed to happen next; Paris is happy to make his drifting comfortable.

When he feels Erik approaching his table at the cafe, it’s almost a relief.

 

One game turns into three, then five. Charles drinks tea, Erik will have nothing. They don’t talk much. Charles keeps his eyes focused on the game. Erik is playing more cautiously than usual. Charles thinks he may be afraid of frightening him off.

After Charles knocks over his king again, he looks up. Erik is watching him. He raises an eyebrow.

“I—I need more time, Erik,” he says.

He frowns, but nods, gently.

 

That night, Charles lies awake in his relentlessly First Empire suite, watching shadows slide over the mantelpiece, with its elaborate bronze clock ticking away the hours. He remembers waking up in shabby motel rooms decades earlier, to the sound of Erik’s ragged breath from the other bed and the clink and suppressed shriek of everything metal in the room trembling ever so slightly.

The second time, he’d said, “Erik, let me—“

“ _No_ ,” Erik had said instantly, and the shriek had slid towards a groan.

He’d raised a hand, worried about the structural integrity of the building. “All right.”

The next morning, as he’d raised his cup of coffee to his mouth at the worn formica counter of a diner, Erik had said to him—without a flicker in his eye or his voice—“Charles, if you ever do what you proposed last night, I will kill you.”

“I said all right.”

The cup hadn’t moved.

He’d laughed a little, uneasy, smoothing away the disquieting sense that he had stirred up something bigger than he had understood. It was a moment he’d often come back to, later. “Erik, I _promise_. I will never interfere with your mind.”

He’d found another way to soothe Erik not long after, or he’d thought he had, until Cuba had shown him he didn’t know anything at all.

 

The next afternoon, they take a stroll in the Tuileries. Erik walks as he always has, purposeful, alert, yet somehow hardly noticing the pleasant wide avenue, the tall elegant trees getting ready to bud. Charles looks at the line of his jaw and wonders when the last time was he took anything resembling a vacation.

“It’s so peaceful here. You’d hardly believe the Committee of Public Safety used to sit in the palace right over there.”

“Didn’t they burn it down?” Erik inquires drily.

Charles swallows a laugh. “Yes. Later.”

“Well, that will do the trick.”

“Wasteful, though. The palace was beautiful.”

Erik shrugs, as if to say that beauty is in Charles’s line, not his. “Sometimes things have to burn.”

“And yet revolutions tend to be awfully indiscriminate.”

He can’t quite keep the note of bitterness out of his voice, and Erik gives him a sidelong glance. After a moment, he says, “Do you miss the school?”

He winces, slowing. He’s told everyone a transition had long been his plan, that it was time for Hank to have his chance, that he was looking forward to having some time for himself for once. Erik is the last person he wants to confess failure to, and yet somehow he’s already done it. “Yes.”

There’s not a trace of triumph in Erik’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Without the school, without the X-Men…” The corner of his mouth draws up, painfully. “I suppose I’m none too sure of who I actually am.”

Strange to be saying this to Erik, who had walked away from the school, from the team, from Charles. But he only raises an eyebrow. “Don’t you think it’s time to find out?”

“I think that’s what I’m doing here.”

“By playing tourist?”

“By _being_ a civilian for a while.” He frowns, moving the chair forward. “Don’t you ever get tired, Erik?”

“You know that’s never been possible, Charles.”

“Maybe it should be.”

Erik only shrugs again, but he seems content to continue walking alongside Charles. For the moment, at least.

 

Late that night, the phone rings. It’s Westchester.

“Hank,” he says, “I hope you’re not running up the school’s bill with all these calls. It’s not made of money.”

He can almost see the humor falling flat. He wonders if things will ever be entirely right between them again.

“I needed to warn you. We just got word that Erik may be in Paris.”

He runs a hand over his forehead. “I know. In fact, I’ve seen him.”

“Is there going to be trouble? Do we need to send a team?”

“No. He’s…behaving. For once.”

There’s a long pause. Charles has always gone out of his way to avoid glimpsing what the others knew, or thought, or guessed. At first, it was too awkward; then, too painful. Not to mention that a man who wanted to run a school could hardly be known to have such preferences. It had been a subject decidedly better left unexplored. But Hank had been there almost from the beginning. He couldn’t very well not have an opinion.

“I was only in Genosha for a few hours, but it didn’t _look_ very millennium-death-cult-like,” Hank says finally.

He grips the phone a little more. “Well, that’s good to know.”

“But…”

“But?”

“You left the school for a reason.”

Several reasons. A multitude of reasons. But Hank isn’t that subtle.

“And you think that if I go off somewhere else to teach, I’ll, what, have them calling themselves X-Men within a year?”

“I’m just saying I think Paris was a good idea.”

“Ah,” Charles says tightly. “Thank you for your input. And for the warning. Have a good—“

“Charles,” Hank interrupts, and apparently this is to be a new thing between them, that he interrupts. Perhaps it should be. “If it—if he—if you—look. You still deserve a chance to be happy. Maybe even he does. Just…be careful, all right?”

He’s startled enough to have to grope for words. “I will, Hank. I promise.”

 

The next morning, Charles looks at the calendar, realizes what day it is, and decides to spend the rest of it with the shades drawn and liberal supplies of very high quality alcohol from room service. It’s not long before his head is swimming. From where he’s sprawled on the couch, the colors of the neo-Classical paintings on the walls seem to shimmer and dissolve. There’s the steady drone of others’ thoughts around him, like a radio someone had left on, but he can’t make out the words.

So many lives, so much bustle and misery, and all for what?

At some point, he must have lost track of his surroundings, because he slowly realizes that Erik is there, sitting with his ankle on his knee in one of the gilded and red-damasked wooden chairs at the other end of the couch.

“Six months,” he croaks. His mouth already tastes vile, which seems quite unfair given the amount of money he’s spent on the liquor.

“I know,” Erik says.

“I miss her so much, Erik.”

“I know.”

Nausea grips him, and he curls to the side.

“Easy.” Erik is there, taking the glass from him, propping his head against a heavily betasseled pillow, and drawing the small waste basket over with a wave of his hand. The touch of his hands, firm and dry, is comforting, and he vaguely wishes he’d do it again. “I don’t think they’d like it if you were sick on this carpet.”

“Don’t care what they think.” He squints up at Erik. He’s pale and his mouth is set. It dawns on him, belatedly, that he’s not being particularly tactful. “Do you want a drink?”

Erik surveys him mirthlessly. “No, thank you. I think one of us should be keeping his head.”

He rises, looking around for a blanket.

“I should’ve told you about her,” Charles blurts.

Erik goes very still. Charles wonders if he’s ruined things. He ought to be getting better at this by now—apologizing—but really it doesn’t seem to be happening.

But Erik only says, “Yes,” and takes up a throw from another chair.

“I thought I was protecting Jean. But really…” He takes a breath. “I was protecting myself. I thought you’d blame me, the way Hank did.” That speech he had made at the funeral. He’s so adept at deceiving others to provide cover for deceiving himself. He’d built a whole school to give himself a better audience.

Erik, Erik who has never been willing to be deceived, nods.

“Do you?”

Erik spreads the throw over him. “She would have been safe with me, Charles.”

It lands like a dull blow in the already gathering headache. He feels another surge of nausea.

"But…” Erik turns down the lamp. “Raven made her own choices. Even after everything that happened, you never really understood that."

He has to protest. “And you did?"

"Some part of you always saw her as the little girl you grew up with. She was something very different to me." Erik’s tone is meditative, detached. Among the few other things Charles had always elected not to know...”If Raven was in harm's way, it was because she went there, because she thought it should be done. In the end, that had very little to do with you."

Charles frowns. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"It ought to.” Erik sits down on the floor, against the couch. “It does me."

Charles twists to look at him. “So you’ve accepted it?”

Erik’s eyes go remote for a moment, that visionary look that Charles knows has meant death for so many who’ve seen it. “I never accept it, Charles. But the alternatives…” He shakes his head, and it subsides. “I think I will have that drink.”

He pours himself a glass from one of the bottles on the tray without looking at the label. Charles watches his profile as he does, the liquor sending a surprising wash of feeling over Charles’s mind, and elsewhere. Erik’s shaven for Paris, and his cheekbones are as high and fine as ever. Skin more weathered, of course, but Charles still longs to kiss him, to feel it under his hands. He wonders if Erik knows. He wonders what Erik wants. Erik has never dealt in the small change of affection, indulged in the little games of attraction. Charles hadn’t been sure, the first time, until his tentative hand on Erik’s arm had turned an instant later into being slammed against the wall and kissed breathless.

Erik swallows, then looks at the glass. “This is very good.”

“For what it cost, it ought to be.”

He gazes around the room. “But this place is ridiculous. Are those _sphinxes_?”

Charles starts a lecture on the First Empire in his head, watches it topple over, nearly goes down with it. He waves a hand vaguely. “It’s the style.”

“Well, at least there aren’t Xes everywhere.”

He’s getting drowsy. “Did you really hate that?” he mumbles, subsiding a little on the pillow. The back of Erik’s neck is right there. He can see the fine hairs, brown and a little red. He could reach out and touch it. That used to be a signal between them in quieter times, a request to let him in.

Back when Erik would let him in.

“No one likes feeling like they’re living in someone else’s world, Charles.”

“Then I’m glad we’re here,” he says.

Or he thinks he says it. Erik doesn’t respond, so perhaps he only said it to himself.

He wakes later, to find all the lights turned down and Erik gone.

 

A week isn’t too much to ask, is it, Charles says to himself.

A week of watching the early Parisian spring peep out in the parks and along the Seine, Charles’s path along the pitched and uneven streets smoothed by a little invisible assistance from Erik. A week of touring the galleries, wood-and-white-wash or grey and industrial (“isn’t a revolutionary supposed to have a modern aesthetic, Erik?”). A week of excellent steaks in little bistros washed down with better wine, talking about anything but politics; Erik may never have had any formal education, but his sharp mind never ceases to surprise Charles with unexpected insights. A week of late-night aperitifs in crowded cafes, feeling the nightlife of the city surge and ebb. It’s been so long since it’s seemed worth it to Charles to make the effort of navigation—and, even with Erik’s help, there are too many limits on what he can do there—but watching the lines on Erik’s face slowly ease, he thinks it is.

Standing in front of the George V once at 2 a.m., Erik says, “Are you trying to corrupt me, Charles?”

He tilts his head. “I was thinking of it as more of a seduction.”

Erik laughs, but turns away. Charles still doesn’t even know where he’s staying. He lets him go.

There’s a particularly absurd visit to Charvet, where the staff are discreetly enraptured by Erik, whom Charles must admit is breathtaking against the dozens of bolts of slight variations on blue which line the wall on the third floor. Charles spends half an hour persuading Erik to let him buy him a single tie, a subtle brocade of blue-silver. He also buys Erik a new novel from the American bookshop about the Revolution (“when was the last time you read anything for fun?”). When Erik actually dozes off reading it in the Place des Vosges amidst the ruins of their afternoon picnic, Charles feels a distinct sense of accomplishment.

Late that evening, Erik says to him, “Don’t let anyone see,” and they are suddenly rising above the city. Charles gasps against the cool wind, barely managing to blur out the perceptions of those below in time, and reaches up to grab at Erik’s hand. They settle on the terrace of the bell-tower of Notre Dame. Charles had been there once before, as a student, giddy with the view and the certainty, the absolute certainty, that there were others like him out there, just waiting for him to find them. Erik must have caught his wistful gaze, earlier.

All Paris is spread out beneath them, twinkling with life. They lean on a parapet, Erik kneeling down next to him, watching the bright traffic move along the Champs-Elysees. Charles takes a deep breath.

“Sanctuary,” he jokes.

“If only.”

“I thought I’d never be able to see this again.”

“Lucky I came along, then.”

Lucky, he thinks. Yes. “Thank you, Erik,” he says, touching his hand again where it rests on the parapet.

Erik looks at him, unearthly in the blue glow from below, and Charles throws the last of his caution out to the city, leans in to kiss him.

Erik’s mouth is soft under his, an instant in which a million possibilities seem to unfurl, but only an instant. He pulls away, raising his hands, and Charles can feel the faintest drag backwards on the chair. “Don’t,” he says, his voice oddly subdued.

Charles blinks, flushing. “I’m sorry—I thought—”

Erik stands. “No.”

“Is, is there someone else?”

With a sinking feeling, he thinks of the beautiful telepath Erik brought with him to New York. But Erik is shaking his head. “It’s not that.”

“Then what?” he asks hopelessly, knowing that, among their kind, there is never any shortage of reasons. Perhaps he was afraid of what the Genoshans would think. Perhaps he had simply decided there was no room in his life to be both a mutant and gay. Though how that squared with the last few days—

“I think it’s better that some lines remain drawn between us, Charles.”

“I…I don’t understand.”

“When Hank came to Genosha, he told me Jean’s story. The whole story.”

The familiar guilt sluices in. But, he realizes, that’s not what Erik means. Erik never had a reason to care about Jean as an individual. Erik means…

“Erik,” he cries, “I swear, I never touched your mind. Not like that. I promised I wouldn’t, and I didn’t.”

Erik looks as if he believes him, but, for some reason, it’s not enough. “And is that why?”

“Why what?”

“Why you did what you did to her. Because this time you had the traumatized child right there, and you could _fix_ it. And she couldn’t stop you.”

Charles stares. “I wanted to—“ Wanted to help her, yes. No matter how wrong it had been, his motive had been good. He is still sure of that. But now he could see it, all the pieces coming together at once as if Erik had snapped his fingers to summon them. Those motel room nights. Other nights, feeling Erik’s pulse racing beneath his fingers in those few seconds before he remembered where he was. Erik killing Shaw, and taking his helmet, and the sense that it could never have been any other way. He’d have done anything to spare Jean that. And if all of his help and all of his love hadn’t been enough for Erik…

“I know you meant well, Charles,” Erik says softly. “But when we were—before—I can’t keep you out.” He swallows. “It’s too far. It’s not safe.”

“And so…that’s it?”

Erik backs away a step. “I’m sorry, Charles.”

“But I’m safe to have among your precious Genoshans?”

He knows it’s the wrong tack to take. He can’t help it.

At that, Erik’s expression firms. “We don’t turn anyone away based on what they did outside. We judge them only on their behavior on the island. You will always be welcome there. But there are some things I can’t risk.”

“Then what was all this, Erik?” Charles gestures wildly, taking in the whole city. “What was it?”

He can see Erik struggling with it, but he reaches the point: “A mistake, Charles. This was a mistake. I wasn’t supposed to be here more than two days.”

Charles breathes through it. “Then I suppose you’d better be getting back.”

“Yes, I suppose I should.”

Erik lifts his hands, there’s a blur, and they’re on the street again. He stares straight ahead, barely noticing the awkward five minutes that pass before they can get a cab that will stop for the chair. Erik speaks to the driver, and he’s gone again.

 

Charles wakes up the next morning and can't think of a single reason to get out of bed. He thinks about calling Hank, announcing that he's coming back. Not to teach. Just to be, and not have to think about this. Hank would come and get him, he's sure.

He doesn't, though. After a few hours looking at the ridiculous wallpaper, he sits up, pulls himself into his chair, and sends his mind over the city.

Erik is gone.

Erik is always leaving, he tells himself. Erik had been leaving him from almost the moment they’d met. This is only the latest exit in a very long series. But that doesn't ease the sinking dread in his chest.

Because this feels different than before. Parting in high drama, the fate of the world at stake—that he understands. It feels part of the natural rhythm of their extraordinary story.

This, on the other hand, is quite normal. Ordinary. Something people on the street, human men and women, might do. Not be comfortable with what the other is asking. Not fully trust him.

That's not something the next threat to the world will overshadow. It just is.

And, for once, it's not something he's sure Erik's wrong about.

 

For two days, he moves around in a fog, hardly leaving his suite. He reminds himself that nothing has really changed, that he didn't come to Paris for Erik. The city remains stubbornly gray, grand, empty.

He scours the papers for mutant news, as he hasn’t done in months. No word of Erik: good. No word of _him_ , either, which stings a bit, even though it’s for the best. His resignation following the deaths of two X-Men had prompted considerable speculation in the press, but he’d smiled charmingly and sadly at the reporters and deflected and it seems to have died down.

He can see now that by voluntarily stepping down, making the grand gesture, he’d hoped to keep control of the consequences of his mistake. It had seemed to be working. Of course it would be Erik who would spoil that plan, Erik who’d dedicated his life to ensuring consequences.

And he had been right, or at least within his rights. Charles couldn’t dictate the terms of his forgiveness, or decide when others thought he was trustworthy again.

But why, he finds himself silently asking Erik, does it always have to be all or nothing with you? Couldn’t Paris be enough?

Erik, as always, is not there to answer.

When he opens his eyes from an uneasy nap in the early evening of the third day to see Erik looking through the Charvet bags for his tie, he's so relieved that for a moment he can't speak.

"Sleeping late?"

There's a long scrape on Erik's cheek. Seeing it loosens his tongue.

"Where have you been?" he asks, hopelessly, knowing that he doesn't have any right.

Erik opens another bag. “We're going back tomorrow. Will you be joining us?“

"'We'?"

"I went to pick up another one of us for Genosha." Erik finally looks at him. “Annoying. He got us into a little trouble. You'll meet him, if you're coming."

He swallows. "Yes. That.” He can see Erik recognizing what’s coming, bracing to absorb it. He hates that he knows it so well, the look of Erik accepting terrible news. He could happily go his whole life without ever seeing that look again. “I appreciate your invitation, truly I do, but I don't think Genosha is a good idea right now.”

Erik, surprising him, says, “Can I ask why?” His voice is husky, but steady.

“I was right to come here. I’ve been hiding away from the world too long. And there has to be an alternative to me in your orbit, or you in mine."

Erik nods, grimly, seeming to recognize the point.

"As for us..."

Erik looks so resigned. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter. It matters more than anything.” He leans forward. “I know what you’re worried about. And I know it’s not my place to tell you you shouldn’t be.”

“No. It’s not.”

“But, Erik, you and I have both done terrible things. To the world, to each other. And yet here we are. I still,” he pauses, gets it out, “I still love you. Can't we...can't we give ourselves a little more time?"

Erik says, so quietly Charles takes it more from the movement of his mouth than the sounds, “Still?”

“Of course,” he breathes, surprised. “Did you ever think otherwise?”

“Often. Very often.” Erik looks down. “You would have had good reason.”

“In the end, I don’t think reasons have much to do with it. If they did, we wouldn’t be here.”

He could say more, but he thinks they’ve had enough of impassioned speeches for a lifetime. He waits, breathless, watching Erik turn it over in his mind.

“So what are you suggesting?”

“I’m going to stay here for a while. Try to get some work done. It’s a good a place as any. You—well, I know you have your responsibilities, but it’s not as if you need an airplane ticket to visit. And, despite everything, I know you don’t hate it here.” He tries to smile. “Come when you can. When you want. Let’s see what happens when we’re not breaking each other out of maximum-security prisons, or trying to change the course of history. We have time, for once. Let’s use it.”

“Perhaps not that much,” Erik says, though he doesn’t look stern, just sad. “They’ll come for us eventually, Charles. They always come.”

His tone chills Charles, but he pushes it aside. “I’ll take that risk. If that’s what you need. If—I mean, if that’s what you want.”

Erik narrows his eyes, faintly disbelieving. “Of course I want it. Still,” he adds, and crosses the room with three swift steps, takes Charles’s head in his hands, and bends to kiss him.

It’s exactly as electrifying as it had been the very first time. But he remembers thinking that first time, without really knowing why, of the deadly crack overhead that you hear just before an avalanche. This is…a kiss.

A _very good_ kiss.

When Erik lets him go, he says, “So you’ll come back?”

“Yes. Although,” he sends his eyes around briefly before bringing them back to Charles, “perhaps you might think of somewhere to stay for the long term without sphinxes.”

“Strong words for a man who used to wear a helmet with lightning bolts on it.”

“I’ve repented that,” Erik says. “You know I’m right.”

“We’ll discuss it more next time,” Charles answers, and it’s the most luxurious phrase he can ever imagine uttering.

“Next time,” Erik echoes, and he seems to like the sound of it, too.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're curious, the book Charles buys Erik is Hilary Mantel's _A Place of Greater Safety_ , a novel from the point of view of several major French Revolutionaries, which was published in 1992.


End file.
